In Theaters: September 29, 2017

BUT FIRST there were three movies that came out last Friday.  I didn't post about them.  I don't remember why I didn't post about them, but I do remember I played in a cornhole tournament last Thursday night and I got second place.  I'm gonna chalk it up to that.

Let's recap.

Friend Request (last Friday)

Creepy girl doesn't get invited to popular girl's party.  Creepy girl turns out to be a psycho witch, or something.  Preferred method of haunting?  Facebook, of course!

Rated R

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (last Friday)

Sequel to the 2015 movie, Kingsman: The Secret Service.  This time the super spies are up against Julianne Moore.

Rated R

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (last Friday)

Another Lego movie.  Instead of plain legos, or Batman, this time it's ninjas.  Ninjago is a Lego property, not a licensed property, like Batman.

Rated PG

PHEW!  Okay.  Now on to this Friday.  Three more.

American Made

Tom Cruise and Doug Liman reunite.

American Made is set in the 1980's and is about an airline pilot who is recruited by the CIA to go undercover and make drug runs for Pablo Escobar.  Expect U.S. Government corruption and irresponsibility to be front and center in this movie.  It's an action comedy, so it's looking at itself as one of those things that's funny, even though it's a real problem.  I would go see it if it wasn't R.

American Made is rated R for language throughout and some sexuality/nudity.

Flatliners

A remake of the 1990 film of the same name.

Five medical students decide it would be a good idea to kill themselves.  They stop each other's hearts and then resuscitate after a matter of seconds, so they can artificially gain near-death experiences.  But it turns out that's bad for you, and it becomes some sort of Final Destination situation.

Flatliners is rated PG-13 for violence and terror, sexual content, language, thematic material, and some drug references.  That's like a buffet of reasons you could earn a PG-13 rating.

A Question Of Faith

Like, don't get me wrong.  I'm glad there's a market for faith-based films.  But we can do better than this.

Three families go through a crisis each.  The white people family has a controlling father who wants his daughter to get a record deal, and a daughter who decides to get brain cancer instead.  The black people family has a dad who is a pastor that spends too much time at work, and a son who gets hit by a bus.  The latino people family has a short-sighted mother who says college is too far and too expensive for her daughter, and a daughter who ends up in jail because it's a trying and tragic experience.  Seriously, I'm pretty sure she was sentenced to serve two years for failure to be an effective plot device.

Man.  It's tough all around, but I say the black people family got it the worst!  Typical Hollywood.

I don't have a crystal ball or anything, but I'm gonna go ahead and predict that the predicaments of the children help the parents see their faults, and they all turn to their faith.

A Question Of Faith is rated PG for thematic elements.

      Big Shot Critic

In Theaters: September 15, 2017

There are TWO new wide releases this weekend.

American Assassin

He made it through the maze.  He made it through the scorch.  Now he faces the crazy super spy world trials.

American Assassin is based on a book of the same name.  Obviously it's a spy thriller.  And honestly, it looks pretty generic except for the cast.  But it's a really good cast.

Dylan O'Brien plays the lead, a young man whose fiancée is killed by terrorists.  He plans revenge all on his own and his efforts don't go unnoticed by the US government, and he is recruited into super spy stuff.

Michael Keaton plays the American super spy man who trains Dylan O'Brien in super spy stuff.

Taylor Kitsch - my main man - plays the villain.  A bad super spy who was also trained by super spy man, Michael Keaton.  I'm a big fan of Taylor Kitsch.

I would go see it if it wasn't rated R.

American Assassin is rated R for strong violence throughout, some torture, language and brief nudity.

mother!

From the nutter that brought you 2014's "Noah", comes "mother!".

Darren Aronofsky is psychotic.  His movies are the cinematic equivalent of modern art.  And just like with modern art, if you gave an elephant a typewriter and a camera, you would get the next Darren Aronofsky movie.

Jennifer Lawrence's star is fading.  She has managed her post Hunger Games career poorly.  She has not leveraged her fame well, and it is most certainly on the decline.  It wasn't a terrible move to sign on to an Aronofsky film.  It was a highlight for Natalie Portman in 2010, after all.  But, crucially, that Aronofsky film was not written by Aronofsky.

Javier Bardem is always down for insane crap.  He's Spanish.  You'll remember that his is the culture that thinks it's a good idea to get everybody in the street and then release a bunch of bulls.

Put these three together and what do you get?  You get "mother!".

I would try to tell you what it's about, but after watching all the trailers I have no clue.  Even if I knew, Darren would be offended if I told.  He would say I tried to explain the unexplainable, or something gay like that.

Just in case anyone here has forgotten, 2014's "Noah" is the one that had the title character deciding to spend his free time on the ark murdering babies.  I'm telling you, Aronofsky is a wack job loony toon.

mother! is rated R for strong disturbing violent content, some sexuality, nudity and language.

Side note/warning: National Review critic Kyle Smith said of "mother!", "it may be the most vile and contemptible motion picture ever released by one of the major Hollywood studios".  So it's bonkers and disgusting.  I'd avoid this one.

      Big Shot Critic

In Theaters: September 8, 2017

So last Thursday I had stuff, ya know?  Things came up, I was busy, get over it.  But if you must know, there were TWO new wide releases.

Home Again

Romantic comedies have only been going downhill since 2005, when Hitch came out.  We might be close to rock bottom.

It's about a mother who lives with her kids separated from her husband now for several months.  On her birthday she gets drunk and doesn't go home alone.  But because she's a cougar, this man and his friends are young and broke.  Her mother convinces her to let them stay with her at her house.  I swear I'm not pulling your leg right now.  And I'm still not joking when I tell you that the husband character who shows up and tries to fix their relationship is portrayed as a sort of antagonist.  Like, this isn't even make-fun-of-fodder, this is downright disgusting in premise.  But don't worry, it didn't make much money at all over the weekend.

Nowadays almost all romantic comedies shoot for this glorified dysfunction thing.  I get it, all families are at least a little dysfunctional because we're people, but families work in spite of this fact.  For the last few years, Hollywood has been pushing this insane worldview where families work BECAUSE of this fact.  So every romantic comedy tries to craft the most insanely dysfunctional family situation, as if that's charming.  It's enough to make me puke, honestly, so let's move on to the terrifying clown.

(Home again is rated PG-13 for some thematic and sexual material)

It

Stephen King adaptation.  Evil clown.  Enough said.

On a positive note, It SMASHED the dwindling box office over the weekend, breaking a few records in the process.  So that's good.

It is rated R for violence/horror, bloody images, and for language.

   Big Shot Critic